North Korea and Russia began discussions about deploying North Korean troops to the Russia-Ukraine war nearly a year before effectively signing a military alliance treaty. While the treaty was cited as the basis for the deployment, negotiations and requests from Russia started before the treaty was finalized. A memorial in Pyongyang records 2,288 North Korean soldiers as casualties.
On September 12, Sankei Shimbun reported, citing North Korean sources, that a Russian military delegation visiting North Korea in July 2023 requested troop deployment during a meeting with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. According to these sources, the details of the negotiations were confirmed through exhibition materials and photographs at the 'Overseas Military Operations Combat Merit Memorial Hall,' completed in April of this year.
Subsequently, North Korea and Russia signed a treaty in June 2024 outlining mutual military support obligations in case of emergencies. This effectively restored a military alliance that had been severed for 28 years following the termination of the North-Soviet Friendship and Mutual Assistance Treaty in 1996. As part of this agreement, North Korea began sending 10,000 troops to Russia's western Kursk region for combat starting in October 2024. According to Sankei, the negotiations for troop deployment began approximately 11 months before the treaty was signed and about 15 months before the actual troop deployment.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, in July 2023, a delegation led by then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang to observe a military parade. In September of the same year, Kim Jong Un reportedly visited Russia and reached an agreement with President Vladimir Putin on 'significant issues' in the security sector.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has transformed North Korea-Russia relations. The two countries had maintained a friendly relationship since the Soviet era, but their ties cooled after the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and the Soviet Union in 1990, culminating in the termination of the mutual assistance treaty in 1996. Although a new friendship and cooperation treaty was signed in 2000, it did not restore automatic military intervention clauses, and relations remained strained due to North Korea's nuclear development and increasing reliance on China. However, the situation changed with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, leading North Korea to support Russia by supplying missiles and artillery shells. Sankei analyzed that North Korea has leveraged Russia's troop shortages to restore and elevate their previously cooled relations to a military alliance.
The newspaper reported that the memorial hall's exhibition materials indicate that 2,288 North Korean soldiers have died in the Russia-Ukraine war. The National Intelligence Service estimated the number of North Korean military casualties at around 2,000 last September. Next to the memorial hall, there are gravestones for 300 soldiers who have been honored as 'heroes' among the recorded casualties, while the remains of the other soldiers are kept on the second and third floors of the memorial hall. The gravestones and urns contain the names, birth dates, and causes of death of the fallen soldiers, with those in their late teens to early twenties making up the majority, according to Sankei.
The memorial hall also displays a document in which soldiers vowed not to become prisoners of war to Ukrainian forces. A North Korean source stated that 'more than half of the casualties appear to have died by suicide' and that 'many soldiers were also victims of drone attacks,' according to Sankei.
Sankei also reported that there is information suggesting that additional North Korean missile units were sent to western Russia in August, raising the possibility that the number of casualties recorded at the memorial hall has increased. Furthermore, the rapid tightening of North Korea-Russia relations is quickly deteriorating the security environment around Japan.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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